Awards and nominees (both Ian's, in this case)!

Congratulations to Chairman Ian Watson on making the shortlist for the Sidewise Award... with a story workshopped through the group, no less.

Come on, Ian!

The Sidewise Awards are presented to recognize excellence in alternate history and named for Murray Leinster’s 1934 short story “Sidewise in Time,” the winners will be announced at Loncon 3, this year’s Worldcon, in London.

Short Form:
“The Weight of the Sunrise,” by Vylar Kaftan
“A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel,” by Ken Liu
“Tollund,” by Adam Roberts
“Uncertainty,” by Kristine Kathryn Smith
“Cayos in the Stream,” by Harry Turtledove
“Blair’s War,” by Ian Watson

Long Form:
1920: America’s Great War, by Robert Conroy
The Secret of Abdu el Yezdi, by Mark Hodder
The Windsor Faction , by D. J. Taylor
Surrounded by Enemies : What If Kennedy Survived Dallas?, by Bryce Zabel

In further awards news...

As previously mentioned (on this post), NSFWG members Donna Bond and Mark West have been asked to serve on the jury for the British Fantasy Awards, which will be presented this September at FantasyCon in York.  Donna is on the jury for Best Magazine/Periodical and Mark is reading for the Best Horror Novel (the August Derleth Award) and the shortlists for all awards have now been announced.

For the NSFWG, congratulations to co-Chairman Ian Whates, whose NewCon Press is on the ballet for Best Small Press.

The other nominees:

Best Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)
Between Two Thorns, Emma Newman (Angry Robot)
Blood and Feathers: Rebellion, Lou Morgan (Solaris)
The Glass Republic, Tom Pollock (Jo Fletcher Books)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Headline)
A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer Press)

Best Horror Novel (the August Derleth Award)
House of Small Shadows, Adam Nevill (Pan)
Mayhem, Sarah Pinborough (Jo Fletcher Books)
NOS4R2, Joe Hill (Gollancz)
Path of Needles, Alison Littlewood (Jo Fletcher Books)
The Shining Girls, Lauren Beukes (HarperCollins)
The Year of the Ladybird, Graham Joyce (Gollancz)

Best Novella
Beauty, Sarah Pinborough (Gollancz)
Dogs With Their Eyes Shut, Paul Meloy (PS Publishing)
Spin, Nina Allan (TTA Press)
Vivian Guppy and the Brighton Belle, Nina Allan (Rustblind and Silverbright)
Whitstable, Stephen Volk (Spectral Press)

Best Short Story
Chalk, Pat Cadigan (This Is Horror)
Death Walks En Pointe, Thana Niveau (The Burning Circus)
Family Business, Adrian Tchaikovsky (The Alchemy Press Book of Urban Mythic)
The Fox, Conrad Williams (This Is Horror)
Golden Apple, Sophia McDougall (The Lowest Heaven)
Moonstruck, Karin Tidbeck (Shadows & Tall Trees #5)
Signs of the Times, Carole Johnstone (Black Static #33)

Best Collection
For Those Who Dream Monsters, Anna Taborska (Mortbury Press)
Holes for Faces, Ramsey Campbell (Dark Regions Press)
Monsters in the Heart, Stephen Volk (Gray Friar Press)
North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud (Small Beer Press)

Best Anthology
End of the Road, Jonathan Oliver (ed.) (Solaris)
Fearie Tales, Stephen Jones (ed.) (Jo Fletcher Books)
Rustblind and Silverbright, David Rix (ed.) (Eibonvale Press)
Tales of Eve, Mhairi Simpson (ed.) (Fox Spirit Books)
The Tenth Black Book of Horror, Charles Black (ed.) (Mortbury Press)

Best Small Press
The Alchemy Press (Peter Coleborn)
Fox Spirit Books (Adele Wearing)
NewCon Press (Ian Whates)
Spectral Press (Simon Marshall-Jones)

Best Non-Fiction
Gestalt Real-Time Reviews, D.F. Lewis
Doors to Elsewhere, Mike Barrett (The Alchemy Press)
Fantasy Faction, Marc Aplin (ed.)
Speculative Fiction 2012, Justin Landon and Jared Shurin (eds) (Jurassic London)
“We Have Always Fought”: Challenging the “Women, Cattle and Slaves” Narrative, Kameron Hurley (A Dribble of Ink)

Best Magazine/Periodical
Black Static, Andy Cox (ed.) (TTA Press)
Clarkesworld, Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace (ed.) (Wyrm Publishing)
Interzone, Andy Cox (ed.) (TTA Press)
Shadows & Tall Trees, Michael Kelly (ed.) (Undertow Books)

Best Comic/Graphic Novel
Demeter, Becky Cloonan (Becky Cloonan)
Jennifer Wilde, Maura McHugh, Karen Mahoney and Stephen Downey (Atomic Diner Comics)
Porcelain, Benjamin Read and Chris Wildgoose (Improper Books)
Rachel Rising, Terry Moore (Abstract Studio)
Saga, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
The Unwritten, Mike Carey and Peter Gross (Vertigo)

Best Artist
Adam Oehlers
Ben Baldwin
Daniele Serra
Joey Hi-Fi
Tula Lotay
Vincent Chong

Best Film/Television Episode
Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor, Steven Moffat (BBC)
Game of Thrones: The Rains of Castamere, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (HBO)
Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón and Jonás Cuarón (Warner Bros)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro (Warner Bros)
Iron Man 3, Drew Pearce and Shane Black (Marvel Studios)

Best Newcomer (the Sydney J. Bounds Award)
Ann Leckie, for Ancillary Justice (Orbit)
Emma Newman, for Between Two Thorns (Angry Robot)
Francis Knight, for Fade to Black (Orbit)
Laura Lam, for Pantomime (Strange Chemistry)
Libby McGugan, for The Eidolon (Solaris)
Samantha Shannon, for The Bone Season (Bloomsbury)

* * * * *

In further Awards news, it should also be noted (because we didn't do so at the time), that SOLARIS RISING 2: THE NEW SOLARIS BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by Ian Whates (from Solaris Books) was a "Finalist for the 2013 Philip K Dick Award".

More details can be found here

The NSFWG Top 50 SF Films

Earlier this year, as we were discussing items for the blog, NSFWG chairman Ian Whates suggested the group could put together some "Top 10" style lists.  We agreed, decided to do SF Films first (fantasy and horror to come!) and everyone went off and created their own list.  These were collated (there are twelve of us in the group) and the films ranked.

This is that list, with the films grouped by ranking (ie, the winner got 8 votes) and then listed chronologically by release dates.

Do you agree, disagree, think we missed something?  Then leave a comment!

 THE TERMINATOR (1984)

THE TIME MACHINE (1960)

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977)

ALIEN (1979)

BLADE RUNNER (1982)

WESTWORLD (1973)

LOGAN'S RUN (1976)

ALIENS (1986)

 

JURASSIC PARK (1992)

METROPOLIS (1927)

The War of the Worlds (1953)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

Quatermass and the Pit (1967)

Planet of the Apes (1968)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Star Wars (1977)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Back to the Future (1985)

Total Recall (1990)

Strange Days (1995)

Men in Black (1997)    

The Matrix (1999)

Forbidden Planet (1956)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Silent Running (1972)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

V for Vendetta (2005)

Inception (2010)

Scanners (1981)

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Mars Attacks (1996)

Event Horizon (1997)

The Fifth Element (1997)

Starship Troopers (1997)

Minority Report (2002)

Children of Men (2006)

Sunshine (2008)

District 9 (2009)

The Lost World (1960)

The Thing (1982)

Brazil (1985)

Predator (1987)          

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

Alien vs Predator (1993)

Waterworld (1995)

Twelve Monkeys (1995)

Independence Day (1996)

Dark City (1998)

Moon (2009)

Interviewed: NSFWG member Mechphil

In order to highlight and showcase the talents of the group members, each of us has completed the same interview.  Hopefully these will be interesting and enlightening and will also include links to websites and books.

Tenth up is Mechphil (a fine member of the group who, for various reasons, has asked to use a pseudonym for this piece)

What made you want to become a writer?

I’ve always had a kind of internal pressure to extract ideas from my busy but rather opaque mind and make them real, tangible and accessible to others. As well as writing I have been known to sketch inventions and even try to build them. That’s how my first published story came into being. It was only after I’d dabbled with building the thing that I decided writing the story was far easier. That desire to make ideas real is perhaps part of what led me to engineering, although engineering was also my childhood environment.

Writing in particular was a form of self-expression I felt compelled to use from an early age – my first conscious piece of creative writing was describing a Himalayan monsoon thunderstorm seen through the slats on the shutters in my bedroom late one hot night. I wrote stories – mainly awful thrillers modelled after the likes of Alistair McLean and Hammond Innes with a bit of Bob Judd thrown in - throughout my childhood and teens not really with any aim at publication.

Later I came to see fiction writing as a powerful way of expressing important, and often philosophical and ethical, ideas in ways a very wide public could engage with. I think fiction plays a most important role in our society’s ability to deal with the new and to direct our technological and cultural innovations.

What was your first success?

That depends how you define success! I was first encouraged to publish by teachers at school, though not the longer thriller pieces but shorter and gentler stories about family relationships. Earlier than that I think my writing changed the way my family understood me. That has been perhaps the biggest success of all.  Having my first story published was a success…but then so was having my first magazine article published, editing my first academic book and having my first academic papers published.

What do you think the group does for you?

The group is very important for giving one a sense of proportion about one’s fiction. I am especially bad at re-reading and editing my own work and I really value the group’s many different perspectives on a piece. These help one to work out what a story really is about. The NSFWG are of course excellent at giving advice about how to edit work ready for publication but there is more to it than that. Sharing writing with a trusted group of others who aim to reflect honestly but positively on creative work is an important part of developing as a creative artist and as a person. One of the greatest pleasures for me in being a member of the group since 2004 has been watching newer members developing. That function depends very precisely on the group’s culture and ways of working. Keeping things positive and open for so long is a real achievement and one I hope we can continue to succeed at for many years yet. For anyone who is interested in writing or has to write for work I would strongly recommend joining or forming a writers’ group. In many professional fields “reflexive practice” is becoming a way of life. Often that means using writing as a way of developing oneself. Whilst writing is a tool which can be used in solitude many forms of professional reflexive practice can be enhanced with shared writing.

What was your last piece of work?

A story for workshopping at the group a few months back. It’s probably one I won’t publish (immediately anyway) as it was something of a send-up of things I work on more seriously elsewhere. Although when I shared it with colleagues at work the resulting discussions were productive so a modified version might have to appear somewhere.

What's coming up from you?
I’m continuing to write and speak in academic and other areas about some of the themes which appear in my fiction. For example, morphological change and identity – how we adapt when our bodies and brains change significantly. Also about how entities with different morphologies cooperate and form working or social groups. A sideline is some work about ethics of autonomous vehicles.

Quite how some of my current experiences in industry will translate into fiction I’m not sure. I have a set of ideas around the often discussed near future “NBIC” technologies which I’d like to explore fictionally. So far I just have snatches of scenes rather than any clear plan. But I think, in my little corner of the engineering world anyway, seen through a writer’s eyes, truth is distinctly stranger than fiction, or even, more aptly, friction, which is a very strange phenomenon indeed. And so something of this might creep into some stories later this year.

NSFWG members on BFS jury

Since 1971, the British Fantasy Society has been the focal point for fans, writers, publishers, film-makers, artists and anyone who is a lover of fantasy and horror in all its forms.  The British Fantasy Awards (originally called The August Derleth Fantasy Awards) has been with the society almost from the start and are now established as an annual event, presented at FantasyCon.

Members of the society vote for the longlist and the Awards administrator collates a shortlist from this, with the relevant titles being handed to juries who will decide the winner.

This year, we are thrilled to announce that two NSFWG members - Donna Bond and Mark West - have been chosen to be jurors.  Donna has served in this capacity before for other societies, though it's Marks debut to the process.

Best Horror Novel (the August Derleth Award)
Cate Gardner
Jim McLeod
Mark West
Pauline Morgan
Thana Niveau

Best Magazine/Periodical
Aleksandra Kesek
Donna Bond
Jim McLeod


From the release:
The juries for the British Fantasy Awards are appointed by the Awards Administrator (Stephen Theaker) under the supervision of the British Fantasy Society committee. The BFS committee itself is the jury for the Special Award (the Karl Edward Wagner Award).

The juries have begun the process of deciding whether to add any egregious omissions to the nominees decided by the voters of the British Fantasy Society and FantasyCon. We hope to announce the resulting shortlists at the British Fantasy Society Open Night on 6 June 2014.

For a full list of jury members, click this link

Memory Man & Other Poems, a collection by Ian Watson

Following on from his PS collection "The Uncollected Ian Watson" (see the blog post at this link), the NSFWG has also had a collection of poetry published by Leaky Boot Press.

As a taster, Ian has provided the blog with a poem that originally appeared Mythic Delirium magazine in 2006

Cobwebs in Heaven

by Ian Watson

 God’s Wife wasn’t like Eve –

although He created Eve in Her image.

She didn’t just potter about in a garden

prior to a curse of childbirth and housework

and being ruled over by a man.

While He took a siesta on the Seventh Day

She was busy with Her own creations,

Which She rather hoped He’d admire,

the life of a million other worlds

-- for She was quite a fast worker.

But He was furious and scorned those as toys

And threw her out of his house called Heaven.

Could it possibly be that He was jealous?

He’d only decorated one world; She’d equipped

Most of the rest of the universe.

Yet She wasn’t too heart-broken, God’s wife,

Satana, not when She thought about it,

falling through space towards her million Edens.

In His rage God forgot one little thing:

Who would keep His Heaven clean? 

That’s why He created angels as audience

to applaud Him while serving as feather dusters

to sweep away cobwebs with their wings.

The collected poems of award winning science fiction writer Ian watson.

Born in St Albans in 1943 and raised on Tyneside, Ian Watson escaped to Oxford as a student in 1960 for 5 years, including a dissertation on 19th Century French literature. Next he taught literature in Tanzania, then Tokyo, and finally (along with Futures Studies) at Birmingham School of History of Art, becoming a full-time author, mainly of SF, in 1976. By now he has published about 30 novels and 11 story collections, and lives in the north of Spain where he recently married the lovely Cristina. His daughter Jessica is a textile designer. Many months eyeball to eyeball with Stanley Kubrick in 1990 resulted in screen credit for A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), directed by Steven Spielberg after Kubrick's death. With Cristina he has also published a cookbook in Spanish about meals named after famous people, and with Italian surrealist Roberto Quaglia he authored a book of transgressive stories, The Beloved of My Beloved, possibly the only full-length genre book by two authors with different mother tongues. His photo-strewn website is www.ianwatson.info, and as regards his most recent major novel (with Andy West), a medieval and modern medical Islamic technothriller, see www.watersofdestiny.com. His favourite beers and wines are many (excluding Shiraz and Syrah), and he fries ray wings in butter.

This book can be purchased from major on-line retailers and good bookshops worldwide. Free delivery is available to most countries from Book Depository in the United Kingdom or the USA. If you have difficulty purchasing any Leaky Boot Press title please contact us at this link.

ORDER MEMORY MAN & OTHER POEMS FROM BOOK DEPOSITORY

ISBN   978-1-909849-11-2

160 PAGES

US$ 15.99

£ 8.99

AUS $12.99

The Last Man On The Net, by Paul Melhuish

My wife and I often joke about who comes from the poorer family. She says that she came from a poorer family because her mother used to take in lodgers and she wore her sister’s hand-me-downs.  I say that I came from a poorer family because we didn’t get a video recorder until 1987.

When it comes to technology I’ve always been a bit slow on the uptake. I bought my first CD player in 1999, I didn’t get a mobile phone until 2004, never cut and pasted on a computer until 2005 and this year, 2014, have begun to e-publish.

I begin this digital adventure at a time when ‘everyone is doing it’. So, have I missed the boat? Shut the stable door after the horse has bolted? Shaved my chickens before the earthquake? Pressed ‘play’ halfway through the programme? (And other sayings).

Well, here’s another saying; better late than never.

My fears about having done all this too late are reduced when I think that this might not have happened at all. Since 2000 I’ve written eleven full novels and one novella. Some of them I’ve submitted for publication and some I’ve just left because, well, they were more like practice runs. If the digital publishing revolution had never happened then these novels would just sit on my hard drive, unread. Maybe some friends would have read them but that would have been it.

Before digital self-publishing I remember trudging down to the post office, a first chapter, covering letter and return envelope in my hand, queuing behind some poor soul there to pay his gas bill, and sending off my submission to some large faceless publishing house or literary agent only to be rejected a few weeks later. My scuffed return envelope would arrive with a standard rejection letter but more often than not they would always use a paper clip to attach the letter to said rejected submission. Okay, Jeremy Farquaharson-Canker Literary Agents, so you’re rejected my work but I’m one paper clip better off so who’s the loser now?

Now, this is NOT a pop at literary agents or publishers. Having met a few at conventions I hear their side of the story. They get thousands of submissions a week and publishing is a business. They can’t take risks on unknowns who think they’re the next JK Rowling. And they did give me all those paperclips. But seriously, a few years ago it was a literary agent who kindly wrote back to tell me to get involved with the BFS which led to my first short story publication. They are not anti-writers, quite the reverse in fact.

The sad truth was that, back then, trying to get your novel published was like hitting your head against a brick wall with the words GO AWAY, YOU WILL NEVER BE PUBLISHED  writ large upon the brickwork. So, my manuscripts sat in the darkness of my hard drive.

Until now.

You may have read a thousand blogs about how the literary establishment has been rocked by ebooks but it’s true. I came to realise that all the novels I’ve written can now see the light of day. My first novel, Bad Acid, was rejected hundreds of times. There were a couple of scares when one agent wanted to see the next five chapters, another wanted to see the full manuscript but decided not to go with it. I actually changed the title to The Deities (a title that I didn’t like but thought may be more saleable) to try to get it published. When Bad Acid hits the digitals shelves in May it will retain its quirky, trashy title. So, the wall with GO AWAY, YOU WILL NEVER BE PUBLISHED has been smashed down. I am now published. My first independently published title, The Acid Lounge, a 9,000 word novelette is now out there to buy for the whacking price of $0.99. When I’ve worked out how you make it free I will. How many I sell will be up to the ebook buying public. Success will be determined by the people, not by just one person somewhere in an office drowning in submissions. How many I sell will be down to how well I publicise the product and whether the purchaser thinks it’s any good.

The most important thing, for me, if the fact that it is being published and the stories aren’t stuck on my hard drive. As a human being you want to make your mark on the world, hack a chunk into the fabric of reality. I feel I’ve done this, however small my mark may be.

for more details on - and how to order - "The Acid Lounge", go to Paul's website.

Carrie At 40

As astonishing as it might sound, Saturday 5th April marked the 40th anniversary of Stephen King's debut novel "Carrie" being published.  NSFWG member Mark West, a longtime fan of the writer, was approached by the review site readerdad.co.uk to take part in their Carrie At 40 celebrations.

You can read his article and review on this link.

As a kid of the ‘70s and ‘80s, I grew up with Stephen King and was aware of him – and a certain book – before I really knew who he was or what he did. During the ‘70s, my Dad was a fan of paperback horror and he had a small bookcase in his and my Mum’s bedroom. Sometimes – not often – I’d go in and look at the spines on the shelves, daring myself to look at the gloriously gruesome images that adorned the covers. One book that killed me was The Fog by James Herbert – the hand holding the woman’s head – but the cover that got me every time I looked at it (and it still has the power to unsettle, since my own 8-year-old son doesn’t like it either) was the New English Library edition of “Carrie”. I have the 1986 ‘sixteenth impression’ so mine has “author of Christine and Pet Sematary” on it but otherwise the image is the same – a well painted portrait of a young woman with wide, staring eyes, a snub nose and a small mouth, opened slightly to show her incisors. Blood seems to run from her hairline, making trails down her face to drip off her chin. I was too young to appreciate it properly, too young to read it but that image succeeded in scaring the crap out of me.

...read on at this link

An Easter break

With Eastercon just winding down, we thought we'd take this opportunity to wish readers of the blog a Happy Easter.

In our own inimitable style...

New from Newcon Press

Newcon Press, the imprint run by NSFWG co-chairman Ian Whates, has two new anthologies out, filled with excellent writers.

Both books will be launched on Friday evening at this year's Eastercon in Glasgow, 6.00 pm on April 18th, unveiled at a launch party which will also see the release of a new collection from Eric Brown and The Moon King, Neil Williamson's debut novel.

A mysterious disappearance in the closed confines of the lunar colony, a man who claims to see a biblical reference made reality, a vital message carved into a piece of decaying skin, a powerful woman’s sage advice to her granddaughter, an artist determined to create the ultimate work of art whatever the cost, the dangerous search for a very special book, a future metropolis terrorised by an enigmatic serial killer, a man caught in a dark spiral of revenge…

Open the covers at your peril.

1. Introduction -- Ian Whates
2. E.J. Swift – The Crepuscular Hunter
3. Adam Roberts – Gross Thousand
4. Donna Scott – The Grimoire
5. Emma Coleman – The Treehouse
6. Paula Wakefield – Red in Tooth and Claw
7. Simon Kurt Unsworth – Private Ambulance
8. Jay Caselberg – Bite Marks
9. Marie O’Regan – Inspiration Point
10. Paul Graham Raven – The Boardinghouse Heart
11. Simon Morden – Entr’acte
12. James Worrad – Silent in Her Vastness
13. Paul Kane – Grief Stricken
14. Alex Dally McFarlane – The (De)Composition of Evidence

Paperback - £9.99 / Hardback - £15.99

order from Space Witch here

Quantum mysteries, explosions with no apparent source, wartime code-breaking, artificial intelligence cloaked in the sweetest of forms, enchantments undertaken on a whim, a fetish convention at a small town hotel, a faithful pet’s ghost that won’t let go, a surgeon forced to operate at gunpoint, a future London where fate rests on the choice of dishes selected at a meal… All this and more.

1. Introduction -- Ian Whates

2. Stephen Palmer – Palestinian Sweets

3. Frances Hardinge – Slink-Thinking                   

4. Storm Constantine – A Winter Bewitchment

5. Andrew Hook – Softwood

6. Adele Kirby – Soleil

7. Stewart Hotston – Haecceity

8. John Llewellyn Probert – The Girl with No Face

9. Jonathan Oliver – High Church

10. Maura McHugh – Valerie

11. Holly Ice – Trysting Antlers

12. Ruth E.J. Booth – The Honey Trap

13. Benjanun Sriduangkaew – Elision

Paperback - £9.99 / Hardback - £15.99

order from Space Witch here

Also, available from Space Witch, is "The Newcon Press Little Black Box" which contains

Hardback copies of both volumes of the duo anthology

La Femme

And Noir

An envelope filled with a quartet of sheets signed by all the contributing authors

A black tea-light candle shot through with silver, couched within a purple organza bag woven from the wings of dark fairies. The two books will be bound together with ribbon to protect the unwary reader, the inside of the box lined with black as an added precaution:

The NewCon Press Little Black Box is strictly limited, with only 100 available, each box individually numbered. When they’re gone, they’re gone…

Price: £39.99

NSFWG member Paul Melhuish interviewed...

...online at Jim Mcleod's excellent horror resource "The Ginger Nuts Of Horror".

Great interview and some nice mentions for the group.

To read the review at the Ginger Nuts site, click here.